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What is Polysemy and why is it so important?
#1
Polysemy is a Greek word that means ???multiple meanings.???

An English example:

???Mole??? is a small, furry burrowing animal (meaning A). It can also mean a blemish on the surface of the skin. (meaning B) It can also mean a spy who becomes part of and works from within the ranks of the enemy. (meaning C)

Why is Polysemy so important?

Different translators will choose different meanings when translating a word that is polysemous. If a translator in one region uses the first meaning for a polysemous word in his translation, and another uses the second meaning, we can ascertain the original language of a document.

The ???Mole??? Example:

Suppose three men in China are translating a book, and in their translations we find the following:

???Mary paid a lot of money to get rid of that annoying blemish.???
???Mary paid a lot of money to get rid of that annoying furry, small burrowing animal.???
???Mary paid a lot of money to get rid of that annoying spy.???

We can easily ascertain that the original language of that document was English. Even if Chinese propaganda 2,000 years later denies it.....claims that the document was always originally in Chinese, and besides there are no manuscripts left to prove we translated it.
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#2
There could be an additional, and slightly different aspect to it as well. One where the original word does have one basic meaning, but is malleable enough to fit numerous contexts. For example:

John told Mary to attain the bread.
The men will be eating and drinking and attaining the women.
The boy reached into the fish, and attained the bait.
The IRS showed up, to attain their monies.
The office manager is upset on the matter, and attains a conference to discuss it.

Then somebody translates it, not really knowing what the original word was, and takes the easy route of translating only by context:

John told Mary to grab the bread.
The men will be eating and drinking and chasing the women.
The boy reached into the fish, and extracted the bait.
The IRS showed up, to collect their monies.
The office manager is upset on the matter, and summons a conference to discuss it.

For that reason, and for the reasons Paul describes, it seems probable that the text with the most split words, is the text most likely to be a translation.
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